Page:The gilded man (El Dorado) and other pictures of the Spanish occupancy of America.djvu/100

86 of the new laws and ordinances issued by the Spanish Crown for the protection of the aborigines, this cloud began to unload itself in a storm of open revolt against the mother-country; when Gonzalo Pizarro, urged by his lieutenant Carvajal, refused obedience; when the viceroy Blasco Nuñez de Vela had fallen at Añaquito in Ecuador on the 18th of January, 1546, and the insurrectionists prevailed from Popayan to Atacamata—then the threatening storm loomed also over the southern horizon of New Granada, and the stunning reverberations of the thunders of revolt reached the heart of Cundinamarca. It was no time for daring expeditions into the mythical interior; every force had to be used for self-preservation. In this period a man came upon the stage of history in New Granada who was to be especially associated with the phantom of the gilded chieftain. He was Don Pedro de Ursua, a young knight from Pampluna, in the kingdom of Navarre. He was the nephew of the royal judge Miguel Diaz de Armendariz, and arrived with him in New Granada in the year 1545. Armendariz came to the "new kingdom" as inquisitorial judge, "Juez de Residencia," and appointed his nephew his "lieutenant."